Updated 10:00 pm, Thursday, January 3, 2008

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The Boeing Co.'s 2007 jetliner order numbers are finally in, and it had a year the likes of which the industry has not seen before.

But Airbus may have done even better.

After spending much of Thursday checking and rechecking its 2007 order bonanza, Boeing announced that it sold 1,423 planes last year -- worth about $173 billion at list prices. That was 373 more than it sold in 2006, which had been its best year ever.

Airbus won't disclose its 2007 order tally for a couple of weeks. While the annual order battle between the airplane manufacturers could be close, Airbus may have sold more planes than Boeing, according to preliminary estimates.

Boeing beat Airbus in orders in 2006 for the first time since 2000.

"Clearly, we've had our share of challenges during the past year, but our customers understand the issues and market acceptance of our products and services has been nothing short of remarkable," Scott Carson, president and chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in a statement.

Boeing's stellar sales year was marked by an embarrassing six-month delay in the 787 program. First flight is not expected until the end of March, with initial deliveries to customers delayed until late November or December rather than May.

But the delay has not hurt sales.

Boeing sold a record 369 Dreamliners in 2007.

It also sold a record 850 of its single-aisle 737s.

This was the third consecutive year Boeing won orders for more than 1,000 jetliners. In 2006 Boeing had 1,050 gross orders, or 1,044 net.

The net figure includes cancellations. The gross total is the actual number of firm orders won in a given year. Boeing had 1,413 net orders in 2007.

Capped by a record 2007, Chicago-based Boeing and Toulouse, France-based Airbus have combined for nearly 7,000 orders over the past three years.

But Boeing is predicting a more normal sales year in 2008, as is Airbus. Orders could be half what they were in 2007 and it would still be considered a good year, Carson said in a recent interview with the Seattle P-I.

"If it were a combined market total of 1,000 to 1,200 for the two major manufacturers, I'd think that would kind of be a normal year, and I think both of us would be pretty happy, and we would compete vigorously for our share of that," Carson said.

Heading into 2007, Boeing expected orders to be similar to 2006, but the demand for new jets was even stronger, particularly in the second half of 2007.

Airbus had 1,204 gross orders at the end of November.

But Airbus is expected to add many more orders in its final count, possibly pushing it past Boeing.

The two companies combined for 2,057 orders in 2005, an industry record that was eclipsed in 2007.

In addition to its final 2007 order count, Boeing also announced Thursday that it delivered 441 jets in 2007, the most in six years and 11 percent more than it delivered last year.

The delivery total fell within Boeing's forecast that it would deliver between 440 and 445 planes in 2007. Boeing delivered 398 planes in 2006.

Airbus has said it expected to deliver between 450 and 460 planes in 2007.

Airbus has delivered more planes than Boeing for several years. It became the world's largest commercial jet maker after the industry's worst-ever downturn after the 9/11 attacks.

Boeing has said it will deliver between 480 and 490 planes in 2008.

The 441 planes that Boeing delivered in 2007 were the most since 2001, when it delivered 527.

Airbus will announce its 2007 deliveries in a couple of weeks, at the same time that it releases its final order count.

To put Boeing's year in perspective, it sold only 277 jets in 2004 and 240 in 2003.

In 2004, Airbus and Boeing combined for only 638 orders. It was even worse the previous year.

Then airlines, starting with those in Asia and later in Europe, went on an unprecedented spending spree.

Boeing won more than 1,000 orders in 2005, as did Airbus.

But it was not until 2006 that Boeing finally topped Airbus for the first time in six years. And Airbus still had an excellent year, winning 824 gross orders, its second-best year ever.

Until 2007, the best order year for Airbus was 2005, when it sold 1,111 planes. Its net total that year was 1,055.

That broke what was believed to be the industry order record set by Boeing and McDonnell Douglas in 1989.

After merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997, Boeing changed its historical order charts to include planes sold by McDonnell Douglas. By that measure, the companies combined for 1,107 gross orders in 1989, according to Boeing's historical order numbers. Boeing has said, however, that it was not really sure how many planes it and McDonnell Douglas sold in 1989, and the number 1,107 might have been based on bad information.

But the numbers posted by Boeing in 2007 shattered anything that it or Airbus did before.

Airbus, however, can still trump Boeing's new mark and establish an order record that might last for many years.